The Secret of Pembrooke Park(109)

Though her mind and heart were still unsettled the next day, she went with Leah as promised to see Harriet Webb. Leah had suggested her grandmother’s cottage as a neutral and discreet meeting place, since it was currently unoccupied while the older woman recovered at the Chapmans’. And Abigail had sent a note with place and time to Mrs. Webb at Hunts Hall.

Half an hour ahead of schedule, Abigail walked with Leah to her grandmother’s cottage and waited.

Nervous, Leah tidied the sitting room, and straightened a knitted blanket folded over the back of the sofa. Glancing around the small cottage, she said, “I’ll never forget the first night I came here. Never liked the place since . . .”

“Really?” Abigail asked in surprise. “I think it’s charming. And your grandmother seems so kind.”

Leah sat down at last. “Oh, she is. She’s a perfect dear. The only grandparent I’ve ever known, really.” She grimaced. “I just . . . don’t like her cottage.”

Mrs. Webb appeared alone and on foot at the appointed hour. Abigail opened the door for her.

Leah rose stiffly and clasped her hands nervously over her stomach. “You wished to see me, Mrs. Webb?”

Harriet regarded her in surprise. “So formal. And how strange to hear my married name on your lips. Do you not remember me—your old friend of the potting shed?”

“Yes, I remember you . . . Jane.”

A flash of a smile transformed Harriet’s weary face, and for a moment she was young and beautiful again.

“That’s better. Thank you, Lizzie.” She smiled wryly. “You and I have gone by several names in our lives.”

Leah’s head snapped up, and she looked at Harriet warily. “What do you mean?”

Harriet pursed her lips. “Only that you have gone by Leah Chapman and Lizzie, and I have gone by even more names: Harriet Pembrooke, Jane, Miss Thomas, and Mrs. Webb.”

Leah stared at the woman through narrowed eyes a few seconds longer, as though searching her expression for sincerity or hidden meaning.

“Why?” Harriet asked, brows high. “What did you think I meant?”

But Leah replied with a question of her own. “May I ask, Mrs. Webb, if you have sought me out of your own volition? Or is it at the behest of your father? And why now, after all these years?”

It was quite an onslaught of questions, Abigail thought, but she remained silent.

Harriet tilted her head to one side and studied Leah’s face. She asked quietly, “I know your father resents mine, but what are you so afraid of?”

Leah lifted her chin. “You haven’t answered my questions.”

“I have not seen my father in eighteen years, Miss Chapman,” Harriet said, reverting to formal names as Leah had done. “And I would certainly never act as his puppet in this, or anything else for that matter. We assume he is dead. I would even say we hope that is the case.”

Leah asked, “Why do you assume he is dead?”

Harriet’s eyes narrowed as Leah’s had. “Why do you wish to know?”

“I want to know for certain that he is gone—that he will not return someday and . . .”

“And what?” Harriet prompted. “Yes, I believe he probably killed his brother as well as the valet to get his hands on Pembrooke Park. But even if he were still alive, what harm would he do you?”

Leah again answered the question with one of her own. “If your father went to such lengths to get Pembrooke Park, why abandon it so abruptly? And why would he stay away all these years?”

Harriet’s eyes hardened. “That is why we believe he is likely dead, though no report of his death has ever reached us. Or perhaps he is alive but fears some evidence of his crimes exists and has fled the country to avoid hanging, never to return.”

“If only we could be sure he was well and truly dead!” Leah’s voice rose on a plaintive high note. Then she seemed to realize what she had said to the man’s daughter and sheepishly ducked her head. “Forgive me. That was an unfeeling thing to say.”

Both Abigail and Mrs. Webb stared at Leah’s tortured expression. Why did she feel this so personally?

Leah swallowed and said, “I was sorry to hear that your mother and brother are gone.”

“Yes. There is only Miles and me now. And you know I don’t mean you any harm.”

“And Miles?” Leah asked.

“Why would he?”

Leah feigned a casual shrug. “Do you not find it . . . suspicious, his coming here as he has, so soon after the house was opened and occupied again?”

“Yes, I do,” Harriet allowed. “I worry about that as well, but only because I fear he will follow in our father’s footsteps and carry on his mad pursuit of the supposed treasure. Why would you think Miles means you any harm? He barely remembered you from the old days, is that not right? In fact, he mentioned to me he had no idea why you found him so repugnant.”

Leah looked away sheepishly once more. “I don’t find his person repugnant. I am sorry if I gave that impression. But Papa and I did find his return suspicious and feared he might be here on his father’s behalf.”

“You give Miles too much credit. If Miles is here, it is because Miles wants to be here, because he believes there is something in it for him.”